in recent years, there has been a substantial increase in the use and deployment of wireless client devices, from dual-mode smartphones to laptop computers to tablets capable of operating in accordance with a particular Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) standard. With “wireless” becoming the de-facto medium for connectivity among users, it has become increasingly important for network systems to intelligently manage connections.
For example, multiple access points may jointly serve a common area. In many situations, each access point periodically scans multiple wireless channels supported by the network to determine characteristics of each channel. However, the scanning performed by the access points is an inherently disruptive process. For instance, when scanning, an access point is temporarily inaccessible to data communications with a client device, which may result in missed data frames from client device(s) and/or missed beacon frames transmitted other access point(s).
The performance of scanning by access points on the wireless network may provide each access point with data regarding its radio frequency (RF) neighborhood, such as the RF characteristics of access points associated with the wireless network, namely neighboring access points, and client devices within the signal coverage area of the wireless network. However it would be highly advantageous for a wireless network through realization of reduced wireless network traffic or increased network stability through reduction of missed data frames if the RF characteristics could be obtained without scanning.
The approaches described in this section are approaches that could be pursued, but not necessarily approaches that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated, it should not be assumed that any of the approaches described in this section qualify as prior art merely by virtue of their inclusion in this section.